With superstrength and invulnerability, Alison Green used to be one of the most powerful superheroes around. Fighting crime with other teenagers under the alter ego Mega Girl was fun until an encounter with Menace, her mind reading arch enemy. He showed her evidence of a sinister conspiracy, and suddenly battling giant robots didn't seem so important.

Now Alison is going to college and trying to find ways to help the world while still getting to class on time. It's impossible to escape the past, however, and everyone has their own idea of what it means to be a hero.

Strong Female Protagonist has been published online since 2012, where it attracted a large fan base, and earned positive reviews on sites such as io9, ComicsAlliance, The Beat, and ThinkProgress. After a successful Kickstarter, Brennan and Molly now bring their series to print, with a book collecting the first four chapters and bonus material, self-published by the authors and distributed by Top Shelf.

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Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Gr 10 Up—Alison Green, aka Mega Girl, lives in a dark world fraught with difficult relationships. She is a biodynamic, who, along with other young people who possess special capabilities, rejects her role as a superhero and attempts to revert to the life of a "normal" college freshman. However, because she retains her extraordinary abilities, she encounters situations that test her resolve to no longer use her powers. Good versus evil, the possibility of world change, and the worth of an individual life are among the deep and complex concepts explored in this volume. Ostertag's emotion-filled images and expressive faces draw readers into the world created with realistic black-and-white line drawings and an occasional full-page color panel. A narrator speaks directly to readers via footnotes at the bottom of each page. While sometimes interesting and necessary to understand Alison's backstory, at times these comments become annoying and disrupt the flow of the story. Due to the ongoing nature of the webcomic in which Mega Girl first appeared (strongfemaleprotagonist.com), some of the book's story line and characters are not fully realized. Aspects of the book, such as the heavy infusion of profanity, make this title more appropriate for older teens. An exploration of similar issues can be found in Faith Erin Hicks's The Adventures of Superhero Girl (Dark Horse, 2013), in which a female protagonist has to negotiate supernatural and mundane worlds. VERDICT This graphic novel for mature young adults might create new fans for the webcomic, but will leave most readers unsatisfied.—Barbara M. Moon, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY

About the Author

Brennan Lee Mulligan is a writer, actor and improviser based in Los Angeles. He performs, writes and teaches at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, acts and directs for Story Pirates, and has had his work optioned, purchased and produced by production companies in LA and NYC. His acting work has been featured on Funny or Die, Above Average, College Humor and the New York Fringe Festival, and he owns well over 5 swords.

Molly Ostertag lives in Los Angeles and works at Disney. She draws Strong Female Protagonist and many other comics, including Shattered Warrior from First Second, Castoffs from Roar, and The Witch Boy from Scholastic (fall 2017). She's been drawing SFP since sophomore year at the School of Visual Arts, and it's been quite a journey! She has a perfect cat, is a snappy dresser, and can cook a great steak.

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This is the only webcomic I follow, and I'm pathetically grateful to get the chance to support it by buying a collection of chapters 1-4.

SFP is the adventures of Alison Green, the former Mega Girl.

You see, somewhere in the 1990s there was a weird global storm; and sometime during the Bush2 administration, it was discovered that a bunch of children were "biodynamic," meaning blessed/cursed with a variety of powers and other mutations. Alison is one of the most powerful of the bunch, with Superman-level strength and invulnerability. For a while, as Mega Girl, she was one of the Guardians, a group of biodynamic individuals who fought crime and especially the minions of the mysterious Menace.

But when Alison actually met Menace, everything changed. For reasons best left unspoiled, he quit villain-ing and she quit hero-ing and they went their separate ways, he into business (where he quickly became a gazillionaire), and she into college (where she deals with, as the web page puts it, a "crippling sense of social injustice").

That is, roughly, where the comic begins. In these four chapters, Alison deals with her past and her future in a variety of ways. Ostertag's art and Mulligan's writing start out a little primitive but they grow fast and are, by the end of chapter 1, better than a lot of "professional" comics writers and artists.

And if you don't at least feel like crying at the end of Chapter Three, there's something wrong with you.

Love this webcomic and series!!! It's an amazingly written and illustrated superhero story, subverting and examining some of the common tropes of the superhero narrative. This isn't your typical superhero story. Alison Greene is a relatable, lovable protagonist, who struggles with question of morality surrounding superheroism, including the sustainability or effectiveness of superheroes. I highly recommend giving this comic a read!This physical copy is just as beautiful as the online version, and I loved how it incorporated the hovertext of the original webcomic as footnotes. I'm already planning on lending this book to my friends in an entirely selfish plot to get them to read it. :)

This is a great graphic novel! Art & story are both superb! Heroine is experiencing an identity crisis and there is question about who and what are really the 'bad guys'. I almost gave it four out of five because it is still a little too male identified for it to be perfect for me, but it gets away with a five anyway because it is such a pleasure to read.

This was a great graphic novel with a relatively fresh perspective. If you are looking to venture beyond the basic DC/Marvel stuff, but don't want to go beyond the superhero genre, then this is a nice choice. Alison Green/Megagirl is a likable and engaging character, and Mulligan and Osertag deserve some props for bringing her and her world into existence.

What if God was one of us? This book is am exploration - what if superpowers were real and what if a very ordinary girl was the most powerful person on Earth. It is reminiscent of X-Men, but with a more modern twist. Excellent writing. I liked the art as well but wish it was in color rather than black and white.

I read her webcomic for free and Brennan is a great author and illustrator whose work has greatly improved and continues to improvement over the course of this series. I bought the book both to support Brennan's work and so that I could share it with my friends. The story, and the world that it takes place in, is well thought out and extremely enjoyable, I'll be looking forward to the continuation.

Alison Green has recently taken off her mask as the world-famous super hero Mega Girl to reveal her identity to the world on national TV, and decides to stop fighting crime to live life as a normally as possible by enrolling in college. Beyond that, I do not want to give too many more details, because this story deserves a fresh, spoiler-free read.

This is, without a doubt, one of the best graphic novels I have read in a long time. Each and every one of the characters feels like a real person with an incredible amount of depth, which is really hard to achieve, especially for Book One of a series. Even the small characters and “bad guys” have a lot to love and empathize with.

There are so many current events in this book. It is the most realistic depiction of what would happen in real life if people suddenly had super powers. It is not just a story about super heroes, but a story about how anyone who cares about the world must feel, especially in times of crisis. I feel like the authors really “get it”. Strong Female Protagonist poses the question of what REALLY makes someone a hero….Is it the super powers, or the way the person decides to live their life?

I look forward to reading Book Two and beyond. I cannot recommend this book enough.

I received a free digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, but I will probably eventually buy a physical copy for my own collection, or for a friend.

Alison Green used to be Mega Girl. She was really good at punching robots... until she discovered that punching robots couldn't save the world. Now she's in college, trying to live a normal life and figure out how to actually save the world. But things are more complicated when you have superpowers.

There is so much heart in this book, so much love for Alison, and Alison has such deep love for people. Mulligan and Ostertag explore the question of what you should do with your abilities, whatever they may be. And they do it well. You can read Strong Female Protagonist online, since it was a webcomic before being collected in book form. The printed book has an advantage, though, because they included a line at the bottom of every page that's semi-hidden as mouseover text in the webcomic. It's like director's commentary, but bite-size and funny. I like the book lettering better, too.